Pantry Staples You Should Never Buy From Aldi

It's no secret that we love Aldi. The bargain store is a treasure trove of items, with some all-time favorites mixed in with a few underrated products that you really should be buying. However, it's also no secret that Aldi's selection can be a little hit and miss. The supermarket chain is famous (or, perhaps, infamous) for creating cut-price, in-house versions of more expensive and recognizable products. While this can sometimes lead to you going home with basically the same item for less money — some Aldi copycats are better than the originals — other times it can leave you questioning the quality of your goods.

This is no more obvious than when it comes to pantry staples. Some of Aldi's pantry goods just aren't worth the price, and plenty of people have weighed in online to point out their least favorites. Everyday items like baked beans, dill spears, and crackers have all been blasted on message boards for being substandard, and even things that you thought Aldi couldn't possibly get wrong (like canned tomatoes) are better bought elsewhere. The question is, how do you know which ones you should buy, and which ones you shouldn't? Well, folks, we've figured all that out for you.

How bad could a can of your favorite baked beans be? If you're shopping at Aldi, apparently pretty bad. Aldi sells plenty of good-quality canned foods, but for baked beans, its own-brand, Dakota's Pride, is far from the best option out there. Customers have found these beans to be pasty, mushy, and flavorless. Some folks have also complained of their beans having a strange, chemical-like aftertaste once they've finished eating them, which we're guessing wasn't quite what Aldi was hoping for.

The problem, too, is that these quality issues don't just affect one specific type of its baked beans. It seems that all of the flavors of Dakota's Pride beans are suffering from a lack of punch and a diminished texture. In some cases, people have posted vomit-inducing pictures of the interior of the cans, which essentially look like dog food. "The Dakota beans are horrible! Definitely the [worst] thing I've bought from Aldi," said one person on Facebook in response to one such picture, which displayed its original baked beans in a congealed, dessiccated state. Yuck. The consensus amongst Aldi customers is that if you want baked beans, you should go with Bush's — and honestly, judging by these responses, we agree. If you're feeling a little more ambitious, you could even try making your own baked beans.

It's pretty wild that Aldi can mess up something as simple as canned tomatoes. Somehow, though, it manages. This isn't necessarily the case with all of its tomatoes, but the Happy Harvest Fire Roasted Canned Tomatoes (which you'd assume have a better quality and flavor overall) just don't hit the spot. In fact, they taste pretty awful. "Their fire roasted tomatoes consistently taste like burning plastic," said one person on Reddit who routinely avoids them. That's pretty good reasoning, to be honest. Oh, in case you were wondering, they also recommend skipping the deli meats, which apparently have a chemical taste.

Flavor issues aren't the only problem with these canned tomatoes, either. Folks have reported finding other items in their cans of tomatoes that appear to be weeds harvested together with the tomatoes themselves. This is a clear quality control issue, and one that may lead to a terrible taste or, at worst, sickness. We get that these tomatoes are cheap, but it's not unreasonable to just expect them and nothing else inside, right?

Aldi stocks an impressive line of knock-off chips, with many of them coming under its Clancy's brand name. However, there are so many Clancy products that it can be hard to tell which ones are worth your cash. Well, we can tell you that its Cheesy Queso Flavored Potato Chips are definitely a choice you should skip. Simply put, people hate these chips, with someone on Reddit creating a post with the title "These are so bad that I feel compelled to warn you." Talk about damning.

The poster went on to discuss exactly why Clancy's Cheesy Queso Flavored Potato Chips are so terrible. "I will eat almost anything that's salty and flavorful, but these are just awful," they said. "They have a really stale aroma and taste like they tried to impart the corn flavor of a Frito onto a potato chip. Has anyone else tried these?" Well, as it turned out, other people had — and they hated them too. "Dude, they nasty," said a commenter in the thread. "I even dipped them in queso and that barely masked the taste." It's safe to say that we won't be buying these anytime soon.

Store-bought dill pickles can never quite hold a candle to a freshly made deli version, but most of the time, they don't get things too wrong. Plus, how much can you expect from a jarred dill pickle? Not much, right? Well, that may be so, but even with that in mind, Aldi's version is pretty bad. "Aldi's Great Gherkins. Don't do it," said a commenter on Reddit who had bought these pickle spears and immediately regretted it. "Aldi has some great stuff. This isn't it. Tough skin, not much flavor and what is there is kinda bitter."

They weren't the only one who didn't like these spears, either. Other folks in the same thread discussed how the spears are lacking in flavor. Additionally, if you're expecting its other pickle products to be any better, you may well be disappointed. People who have bought Aldi's Great Gherkins Hamburger Dill Chips have complained about the fact that they have no crunch at all, and instead just give you a soggy mouthful of vinegar. Hardly what you want on your burger, is it?

Aw, man. We really had high hopes for these. Aldi Millville Crispy Rice Treats seem at first glance to be a winner: They come in a vibrant blue box, promising a gooey treat held together by glorious marshmallow. Open them up, though, and you'll get a different story. The issue is that Millville Crispy Rice Treats smell absolutely awful. Like heinously, disgustingly awful. We know, we were surprised too — but that's the consensus online. 

"Has anyone ever had the Millville brand Rice Crispy Treats? They smell like literal garbage. Like actual trash in the dumpster," said one baffled customer on Reddit. The customer does go on to say that they taste great, but the smell is just getting in the way too much. Sadly, some people don't even get to tasting them because of this scent issue. "Dunno how they taste. The smell was enough to scare me off," said another customer. Others think that both parts of the product is the issue, with someone else saying that, "they taste as bad as they smell. I threw them away." Aldi, we're begging you: Address this one as quickly as you can. There's clearly a problem here!

Everyone loves Oreos, but everyone also loves a bargain. So if you want the best worlds — to enjoy the delightful flavor of these sandwich cookies without paying name-brand prices — then Benton's Original Chocolate Sandwich Creme Cookies might appeal to you. However, this Aldi knock-off is far from a favorite amongst its customers, who have pointed out that the store gets its ratios drastically wrong on these cookies. Folks have pointed out that the amount of filling in Benton's Original Chocolate Sandwich Creme Cookies can be super inconsistent, and on top of that, they can also be poorly put together, with wafers sometimes facing the wrong way.

As for the flavor? It's not all that. "Oreos are expensive but worth it over these. There's much more of a cocoa taste vs the fake chocolate taste of Benton's," said a rueful customer on Reddit. Another person reiterated that you're better off spending the extra money on Oreos, as Aldi's sandwich cookie just doesn't quite scratch the itch. The good news, though, is that the other cookies in the Benton's selection are pretty tasty — so you won't have to pay top dollar for everything, y'know?

Aldi can play fast and loose with its product names and packaging, which often imitate name-brand items to the point of parody, and occasionally even to the point of a lawsuit. As long as Aldi keeps getting away with its copycat products, though, we'll keep buying them — unless they're its Savoritz Golden Round Crackers. These are an imitation of Ritz crackers (get it?), and it seems that at one time they were pretty decent. However, more recently, customers have been noticing that they've taken a real nosedive in quality, with multiple people pointing out online that an apparent change to the recipe has made them taste terrible. Now they have a cardboard-like taste, and none of that punchy saltiness that makes Ritz crackers so great.

Others have noticed that Savoritz Golden Round Crackers can suffer from quality control issues, which may explain their poor taste. Reportedly, every now and again, the product can be a pretty good dupe for Ritz, and it could be the case that the boxes are just sitting around for too long before being sold. However, we think we'd rather just spend the extra dollar or two on a better, more reliable product.

If you're buying something that's advertised as "100% pure avocado oil," it's probably not unreasonable to expect it to be exactly what it says it is, right? You'd think that'd be the case with Aldi's Simply Nature 100% Pure Avocado Oil — but it's not. In fact, you may want to skip Aldi's avocado oil entirely, as third-party lab testing found that it's actually mixed with different, cheaper oils. Basically, when you buy it, you may be paying a top-shelf price for an inferior product.

This isn't just an issue on a flavor or a nutrition level, but it's also a clear case of false advertising. As you might expect, the discovery of its avocado oil's true composition has been a huge headache for Aldi. In 2024, it even resulted in a class action lawsuit against the retailer, with plaintiff Maggie Frost making the case that Aldi's "100% Pure" label may be deceptive and potentially risky for those who rely on unadulterated products for health or dietary reasons. As of summer 2025, it appears that the result of the lawsuit has yet to be determined.

We thought we'd seen everything, until we spied Clancy's Stackerz on Aldi's shelves. Aldi's cut-price version of Pringles seemed to be beamed down from above, with the retailer somehow nailing the uncanny curved shape of the stacked chip. How do they do on the taste front, though? Unfortunately, not great. Clancy's Stackerz are renowned in the Aldi shopper community for being a poor imitation of Pringles that have none of the intensity and fullness of the real thing.

The thing about Clancy's Stackerz is that it's not like they taste bad. They just kinda don't taste of anything, apart from sodium. "The fake-pringles make me sad," said one disappointed purchaser on Reddit. "They're weirdly thick and don't have much taste other than salt, even if they're a flavor." Others have said that while they're not the worst thing you can buy at Aldi, they're not good enough to actively seek out and purchase. Instead, people recommend going for Lay's Stax as an alternative to Pringles — or just getting the real thing.

We don't think we've ever seen a product unite people as much as Aldi's Priano Jarred Alfredo Sauce does. However, here's the rub: Nobody's saying anything good about it. Priano Jarred Alfredo Sauce is renowned as being one of the worst things you can buy at Aldi, and maybe even one of the worst things you can buy with your money full-stop. People absolutely loathe this sauce, folks.

So what don't people like about Priano Jarred Alfredo Sauce? Apparently, pretty much everything. Customers have pointed out its sheer lack of flavor, saying that it has absolutely no presence or punch. Other people have highlighted that its texture is somehow both thin and viscous, with a revolting mouthfeel that totally ruins any enjoyment of it. If you're willing to pay for Aldi's more luxurious Alfredo sauce options, you might not be totally disappointed, but the Priano version is far from worth it. One Aldi shopper summed it up well on Reddit, saying that it was the "only thing I've ever gotten at Aldi's that was terrible. Dumped right into the trash." We don't know if reviews can get worse than that.